Diet culture seems to be the latest buzz word from influencers on TikTok but it is also crept its way into the classroom.
Reporter Grace Gerstner helps us take closer look of how diet culture effects the everyday life of USC students.
Diet culture is a way of thinking that has been criticized for putting appearance and body size over healthy eating and exercise. This culture causes harm to both physical and mental health by creating dangerous behavior.
Diet culture is extremely prevalent on college campuses because we are constantly comparing ourselves to our peers. Hailey Martinez, a junior at USC, says that even if you cannot always feel the toxicity of diet culture, it still exists under the surface.
MARTINEZ: I feel like diet culture is not something that you see, but rather something that you feel or hear about, like just from individual students. So I don’t know if that is something that is not wrong with them or something to criticize about them, but rather a reflection of bigger issues that we have.
Seeing the effects of diet culture take place first-hand or heard can be disheartening. Elsie Bencke, a freshman at USC sees the diet culture in specific parts and groups on campus.
BENCKE: Definitely dining halls is a main place. I just hear it amongst me and my peers, and especially especially in circles and Greek life and girls.
A lot of the USC population is aware of the culture on campus and there needs to be a change.
This issue has reached the masters student programs who are working to create a more accepting and healthy environment on campus.
Kristine Wong is a first-year master’s student obtaining her degree in nutrition, health span and longevity.
Diet culture is a beast that affects everyone differently. It can affect your social interaction, self image issues, and physical health.
WONG: I think that diet culture is really complex because every single person will have a different experience with it and have has been impacted by it in a different way. Ultimately, I think it is an idea of what your body should look like and what you should be eating or doing to obtain that.
While at USC, Kristine noticed that diet culture was exacerbated by the social expectations and life at USC.
When restrictive dieting occurs your body is put into stress and enters a type of survival mode.
WONG: So a lot of the harm in dieting is on the physical and mental part of health, because when you’re dieting and you’re putting your body in this, like restricted caloric zone, your body has so many adaptive strategies to help you survive.
Kristine says that we all need the reminder that health is not determined by body size. Everyone is different and requires a different amount of food.
WONG: Ultimately, one of the concepts that I really try to practice is health at every size, which is this idea that you can’t base someone’s health based off of their body size.
It is so important to remember the importance of putting your health before social expectations of what you should look like. Not all bodies are the same and there is no specific diet that works for everyone.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Grace Gerstner.